"John has been a pleasure to work with on the board and in the Executive Committee. The more I’ve gotten to know John, the more I appreciate his skills." --Brett LaDove, Past President, Institute of Management Consultants

Behavioral Science

"I find it fantastic how I can just throw you into almost anything and you use your knowledge of process and technical organizations to do the job well." --Jennifer Selby Long, Owner, Selby Group

Customer Loyalty

John helped Visa evolve its cardmember loyalty platform to enhance credit market adoption and attract large financial institutions to its loyalty offerings.

Process Improvement

Bring critical processes to the highest quality with Six Sigma and other quailty management methods.

Fortify high-risk processes with contingent processes and triggers.

Reverse-engineer and document current processes to understand the real process being executed.

Thoughts on Process Improvement

Business Process Leadership

Are your business processes taking you where you want to go? If not, the last thing your processes need is business process management. Instead consider business process leadership. Efficiency guru Steven Covey once said, “Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.” Is your process taking you up the right wall?

The problem with most process management is the triumph of means over ends—following the process because it’s the process. When you and your team focus more on the steps of a process than the actual objectives of the process, you fall into, what I call, the process management trap. To avoid this trap, everyone involved in the process must clearly know what the process’ objectives are, not just the steps. Unlike process management which focuses on getting the steps right, process leadership focuses on what your process must accomplish. And, just like your organization, too much management and not enough leadership will get you nowhere fast.

Unlike process management which focuses on getting the steps right, process leadership focuses on what your process must accomplish. And, just like your organization, too much management and not enough leadership will get you nowhere fast.

Clearly define what the objectives should be for every critical process that you have. This is the essence of process leadership. Ask yourself the following questions:

What are you expecting this process to do?

What transformation will happen with this process?

What constraints exist around the outcome (i.e. quality standards)?

What will the end state be if this process completes successfully?

Who benefits from this process, and are their needs met?

Who has an alternate interest in this process (e.g. regulatory), and are their needs met?

Business process management without business process leadership is a high-speed train to nowhere. The best thing you can do for your process is make sure it’s accomplishing what it needs to accomplish, and that means clearly documenting and communicating objectives. As a leader, this exercise starts with you. Survey the landscape of your current processes, and make sure you have your ladders leaning against the right walls.

Contact us today if you’d like to chat more about improving your organization’s critical processes.

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Customer Loyalty, Visa

At Visa, Inc. John worked with the Global Loyalty and Information Products division to develop a cardmember loyalty system to be leveraged by partnering financial institutions. John managed a critical data migration to a third-party platform, that greatly increased the program's flexibility and scalability.

Ginger McLaren, Sun Microsystems

"John has a special way of interacting with people that is comfortable and truthful. He spells out the necessary with an ability to make it real and not sting! I have worked with John in many capacities. He does the right thing, works every aspect of project management ethics and makes even the most difficult personality willing to cooperate..."

Six Sigma Black Belt

Trained at Motorola, USA, where Six Sigma was originally developed, under the best Master Black Belts in the world. Six Sigma uses a set of quality management methods, including statistical methods, to improve the quality of process outputs. A Black Belt is the highest ranking practitioner on any project, responsible for leading the team and performing more advanced statistical analysis.